Jason and Priya Downes were strolling in a Moscow park the day before a friend’s wedding when his cell phone rang. It was their neighbor Jill telling them, “Uh, there’s a small problem.”

A torrential downpour the previous night had knocked a giant oak tree into their house, tearing off a corner of the roof as it crashed across the deck, smashed the sunroom windows and wiped out a hillside of azaleas.

 

“The irony is we were basically hemming and hawing about renovations,” Jason Downes said, showing pictures of the damage as Colin and Windsor, miniature dachshunds, lapped his ankles. “Then the tree fell (in May 2008) and it was a sign.”

 

The Downes’ two level contemporary sits high on a hill in a small enclave of contemporary homes in leafy Cleveland Park. From the second floor deck and through the interior windows the winter view is dramatic.